Method of and apparatus for delinting cotton-seed hulls.



REYNOLDS. METHOD OF AND APPARATUS FOR DELINTING COTTON SEED BULLS.

A PPLICATION FILED JUNE 10. I916.

Paten (Pct 23 1917. EETS-SHEET I.

M. REYNOLDS.

METHOD OF AND APPARATUS FOR DELINTING COTTON SEED HULLS.

- LICATION FILED 1UNE m. 1916.

' 1,4,11, Patented (m 23,1917."

3 SHEETSSHEET 2- M. REYNOLDS.

METHOD OF AND APPARATUS FOR DELINTING COTTON SEED HULLS.

APPLICATION FILED JUNE I0, 1916- Patented Oct. 23, 1917.

' 3 SHEETS SHEET 3 barre; srans ra MERCER REYNOLDS, or cnarcrriivooemrnnnnssnn, ASSIGNOR To ATLANTA u rrnf'r worms, or EAST roman, GEQRGIA, a coaror'tntrion or enoneIA.

METHOD or AND APPARATUS For. nnnINTmeboTroN-snnn nULLs.

Application filed June 10, 1916; Serial No. 103,002.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, MERCER REYNOLDS, a citizen of the United States, and resident of Chattanooga, Hamilton county, State of Tennessee, have invented anew and useful Improvement in Methods of and Apparatus for Delinting Cotton-Seed Hulls, of which the following is a specification.

My invention relates to a process for delinting cotton seed hulls, and relates particularly to the method of recovering the lint and cleaned hulls by subjecting the hulls to av rubbing operation.

The principal object of the invention is to provide a process by means of which a greater amount of material may be treated with less power and less wear and tear on' the machine, and produce a better grade of products. i

In order to attain this end, the linty hulls I are first heated, which drives off a portion of the moisture and at the same time softens the natural glue which makes the fiber adhere to the. hulls, and also toughens the hulls to such a degree that they will not be pulverized into powder.

They are then passed into the rubbing machine, the rubbing machine being so arranged that the two surfaces which are doing the rubbing will not come in close enough contact with each other-to cause the hulls to be ground into a powderedform.

They are then passed into a separating machine which separates any finished and cleaned hulls, and at the same time separates any loose fiber from the material, andthe material which is unfinished passes to a second rubbing machine, and after being rubbed by the second rubbing machine, the

roduct is passed back'to the discharge side of the first rubbing machine and goes back to the separatingmachine with the product from the first rubbing machine, and as nothing but the unfinished product is operated on the second time, a great deal of power is saved and the capacity of the machine is greatly increased. Y i

The further objects and novel features of the process and apparatus will be, apparent from the following description taken in con-' nection with the drawing, in which:

Figure 1' is a sideview of an apparatus for carrying out the process, parts ofrthe apparatus beingshown broken away; Fig. Q'isan end view of the apparatus; Fig.8 is a sideview of the separator used in carrying out'my process, parts thereof being broken outlto show the interior construction;

Fig. 4 is a transverse sectional view of the-beater taken on the line 4-4 of Fig. 3; Figs. 5 and 6 are plan views of rubbing plates used in the. rubbing machine;

Specification of Letters Fatent. V Patentd 0C1]. 23, 1917. 7

Fig. 7 is a transverse sectional view showing therelative position of the stationary and moving rubbing disk.

Referring to Fig. 1 the hulls are placed in a hopper 10. at one end of a feed trough 11. The feed trough 11 contains a spiral cut flight conveyer 12 and a heating device such as the steamcoil or steam jacket-13 surrounds the chamber in which the conveyer 12 is mounted so as to heat the bulls as they are-conveyed to the rubbing ma chine. The conveying device 12 feeds a uni form definite quantity of hulls per hour through the heating chamber and .the quantity may be increased by means of suitable adjustments on the hopper 10, but for each adjustmentthe quantity fed is uniform.

is raised to a sufficient degree of temperature to loosen or melt the waX at thebase of the fiber next to the hardor. woody portion of the hull. This heat also removes the moisture from the fiber-and toughens the hard hull. This step of melting the wax and re-. moving the moisture facilitates very much the rubbing of the material and the loosening of the fiber from the hull, and conse quently this preliminary preparation of the hull by heating is very important to accom plish asatisfactory separation of the fiber and hard hull without an excessive expenditure of power and work by the rubbing machines. The heating device toughens the hull and at. the same time softens the wax so that the lint is more easily removed.

From the heater the tempered hulls are 1 so Inthe heater the uniform stream of hulls V plates in the huller 15 is different from the plates shown in the patent above referred to.

Segmental plates such as are used in the present machine are shown in plan view In Figs. 5 and 6, and in relative position in the sectional View, Fig. 7 It will be seen that the movable and stationary plates A and B shown in Figs. 5 and 6 respectively each have radial ribs 17 and 18 respectively, eX- tending from the inner edge in broken lines to the outer edge. The breaks between the radial ribs in the plate A are made by concentric ribs 19 which are substantially the same height as radial rib 17. In the rubbing plate B the concentric ribs 20 form the breaks between the radial ribs 18, but when the plates are set in place in the rubbing machine, as shown in Fig. 7, they are perfectly parallel, and it will be noticed that the plates A and B have concentric ribs thereof staggered, that is, no rib on the inside of the periphery of either plate is of the same diameter as the rib on the opposite plate. By arranging the plates in this manner, I am enabled to employ a new principle in attrition, which 1 term center rubbing. This mode of rubbing is especially adapted for hulls in that the hulls must pass from the pockets of one plate into the pockets of the opposite plate and in so doing the lint is passed over the concentric ribs and is not forced between two registering concentric ribs. This is a desirable feature because it avoids fires in the machine and also avoids'eXcessive consumption of power and wear and tear on the plates. This fea ture of center rubbing causes the rubbing to start at the point of entrance between the plates where the leverage is shortest, and is uniform across the entire surface of the plates, hence there is an unusual saving of power and wear.

In Fig. 7, it will be seen that the pockets 21 and concentric ribs 19 alternate, and in the plate B the pockets 22 and concentric ribs 20 alternate, and no two concentric ribs on the opposite plates are opposite one an other.

- Referring to Fig. 2, the rubbed material from machine 15 is discharged through the chute 23 into conveyor trough 24: which has a conveyor 25 therein moving the material into the elevator casing 26. Suitable con veyer means in the elevator casing delivers this stream of tempered and rubbed hulls to the feed chute 27 at the feed end of a separator or beater in casing 28.

Referring to Figs. 3 and a, the separator or heater in the casing 28 consists :of a shaft 29 carrying a plurality of suitable radially extending beater arms 30 having flattened tips 31. These beater arms 30 are disposed at a slight angle to the center line of the shaft, thus also serving as conveying means for moving the material toward the discharge end of the beater. The casing 28 is substantially air-tight except at the bottom which is covered with a perforated metal screen 32 of suiiicient size for passage of clean coarse hulls and some coarser uncleaned hulls, and is also open for the admission of air. Above the beater shaft 29, but instead of the housing there is a veil or false top or deflector 33 which extends from the upper side of the casing downwardly at a slight angle to a pointjust beyond a line above the center of the shaft and in the direction of the rotation of the beater arms and shaft. Adjacent this veil 33 there is an opening 341- which extends the full length of the beater and leads to an outlet 35 which is connected with the inlet of an exhaust fan 36, shown in Fig. -1. The heater vigorously beats or disintegrates the product and keeps it in a state of agitation. The veil is so placed that the material is thrown down across the opening 3% where it is subjected to a gentle upward draft which draft is so adjusted that it will only lift the lint, and will not lift either the cleaned or uncleaned hulls over the veil into opening 34 and thence intc fan 36, as indicated by the arrows. The fan 36 delivers the lint through a pipe '37 to one or more suitable condensers 38 where the lint is collected.

The air entering through the perforated bottom 32 of the beater prevents most of the fiber or lint from passing through the bottom 32 with the cleaned'hulls which would be tl e case if the-material were not subjected to a draft during the separation of the three products, viz: fiber, cleaned hulls and uncleaned hulls. This application of the suction therefore more thoroughly separates the products and prevents a loss of fiber which would occur if the suction were not applied while the three products are being separated.

The object of this arrangement of separating device is to remove all loosened fiber and cleaned hulls from the uncleaned hulls as fast as the fiber is .loosenedand the hulls are cleaned, so as to avoid excessive rubbing or repetition of rubbing the product that have been finished, and in this way save power and improve the quality of both products being produced.

Cleaned hulls and some coarser uncleaned hulls containing a very small amount of lint pass through .the perforated bottom 32 and fall 011 the shaking screens 4:0 and a l, as shown in Fig. 1. The shaking screens 40 and 41 may be covered with such size of screen as to produce a grade of cleaned hulls desired by the operator. The cleanedhull's are discharged into a conveyer trough 4:11 which discharges at some convenient place where the cleaned hulls are put in bags. The uncleaned hulls not sufficiently rubbed, which tail ed the finishing shaker 41, are

discharged through the chute 42 into the conveyer casing 43 which has a left hand conveyer 44; therein returning this material to the elevator casing 26 which carries the material back to the beater chamber 28.

The material in the beater casing which neither passes through the perforated bottom 32 nor is withdrawn by suction of the fan 36, passes into a tightly covered conveyer casing 45.. The conveyer casing 45 has a conveyer 46 therein carrying the material out of the casing 28 and discharging it into a second rubbing machine t7 equipped with plates set in every way similar to the first mill 15. The hulls which pass out of the end of the beater on account of not having been suficiently cleaned, being too heavy to be lifted by the suction of the fan or contain too much fiber to pass through the perforated bottom, are again subjected to further rubbing action by the plates of the mill at, and the material from the discharge of the mill 4? passes into the chute 48, and thence into the conveyer L8. The conveyer in thistrough-delivers the material to the elevator casing 26 where it is mixed with the material from the first rubbing mill 15 and delivered to the separating device 28.

Since the hulls which are delivered to the first huller or rubbing machine 15 are heat treated and fed in. a uniform quantity, it is impractical to deliver to the first rubbing mill the unfinished particles which do not pass through the screen 32 of the beater.

By introducing the material from the casing 28 into the feeder of the first rubbing machine the new or fresh hulls would be chilled since they are at a very much higher temperature than the material discharged from the heater, and therefore by rubbing this material in a separate or second rubbing machine the full advantage of the heat treatment is obtained, only one separating mechanism is required and a greater efficiency is obtained from a given amount of power.

Finely ground cleaned hulls are found to be very detrimental as a cattle food, and therefore one of the principal objects of the above described process and apparatus is to produce a coarse hull that contains practically no lint, and at the same time leaves the hull itself in practically the same shape and size particles in every respect as it was before being treated, which is done by the designing of the plates and the parallel setting of these plates, and not allowing the seal rings on the two sets of plates to set exactly opposite each other, and running them slightly open to prevent powdering the hull itself.

The material from the two rubbing machines is discharged into the single beater or separator as described above, in order to 1'. separate the three products, viz lint, cleaned hulls and uncleaned hulls the lint being drawn out of the top by a slight draft, the

cleaned hulls falling through the perforated metal against said draft, and the hulls which still contain lint and are prevented from falling through the perforatedmetal by said draft on account of the lint being attached, passing'out ofthe end to be re-rubbed.

Thus itwill be seen that one grade of delint or fiber and one grade of delinted hullsare produced. The process is an end less cycle of operations and results in completely separating the linty fiber from the hull itself, leavingonly two products, viz: cleaned hulls and delint or fiber. Since only finished products and notailings are discharged by the apparatus of the system, no matted material in which fire-might be trapped is produced, and'on account of the small volume of material being operated upon at any one time, the danger of fire,

should it occur, is practically eliminated.

l-laving thus described the invention, what is claimed and desired to be secured by Let ters Patent is: a 1., A process for delinting cotton seed hulls which: comprises heating the hulls, subjecting the hulls to a rubbing action, passing a gentle draft through the material to remove the free lint therefrom, separating the finer and coarser particlesof the remaining 'material, subjecting the coarser material to a second rubbing action, mixing the latter material with material derived from the first rubbing operation, and feeding the miXture to said separating mechanism to separate the lint and delinted or cleaned hull particles in a continuous cycle. 2. A process for delinting cotton seed hulls which comprises rubbing the hulls in a suitable rubbing machine, passing the rubbed material through mechanism for separating the lint, finer particles and coarser particles from each other, rubbing the coarser particles in a second rubbing v machine, mixing the rubbed material from the second rubbing machine with the rubbed material from the first rubbing machine and feeding the mixture to said separating mechanism and recovering the lint and delinted or cleaned hull particles.

3. A process for delinting cotton seed hulls which comprises heating the hulls and rubbing them in a rubbing machine, passing the rubbed material through mechanism for separating the lint, finer particles and coarser particles from each other, rubbing the coarser particles in a second rubbing machine, returning the rubbed material from. the second rubbing machine to the said separating mechanism, and con-L tinuously recovering the lint and delinted or cleaned hull particles.

4. A process for delinting, cotton seed hulls which comprises uniformly feeding cotton seed hulls to a rubbing machine and simultaneously heating them While they are being fed, rubbing the hulls in the rubbing machine, passing the rubbed material through mechanism for separating the lint, finer particles and coarser particles from each other, recovering the lint and liner particles, rubbing the coarser particles in a second rubbing machine, and returir ing the rubbed material from the second rubbing machine to said separating mechainsm.

5. In an apparatus for delinting cotton seed hulls, the combination of a rubbing machine, means for feeding hulls to said machine, a separating device, means for conveying the rubbed material from said machine to said device, said device having means for separating the finer from the coarser particles, lint collecting means, means for removing the lint from said device and delivering the same to said lint collecting means, a second rubbing machine, means tor delivering the coarser particles to said second rubbing machine, and means for conveying the rubbed material from the second rubbing machine to the first mentioned conveying means to be mixed With the rubbed ,material from the first mentioned rubbing machine and delivered to said separating device.

6. In an apparatus for delinting cotton seed hulls, the combination of a rubbing machine capable of rubbing lint off of the hulls, means for feeding hulls to said machine, means for heating the hulls before they are fed to said machine, a beater, means for conveying the rubbed material from manner said machine to said beater, said beater having means for separating the finer from the coarser particles, lint collecting means, an exhauster for Withdrawing the lint from said heater and delivering the same to said lint collecting means, a second rubbing machine, means for delivering the coarser particles to said second rubbing machine, and means for conveying the rubbed material from the second rubbing machine to the first mentioned conveying means to be mixed With the rubbed material from the first mentioned rubbing machine and delivered to said heater.

7. A process for delinting cotton: seed hulls which comprises rubbing the hulls in a suitable rubbing machine, passing the rubbed material through mechanism for separating the lint, finer particles, and coarser particles from each other, rubbing the coarser particles in a second rubbing machine, and feeding the material from the second rubbing machine into said separating mechanism, thereby separating the lint and delinted or cleaned hull particles in a continuous cycle.

8. An apparatus for delinting cotton seed hulls comprising a rubbing machine, mechanism for separating the lint, finer particles, and coarser particles of hulls coming from said rubbing machine, means for subjecting the coarser particles coming from said separating mechanism to a second rubbing action, and means for conveying the product of said second rubbing action to said separating means.

In testimony whereof I affiX my signature.

MERCER REYNOLDS.

Sopies of this patent may be obtained for five cents each, by addressing the Commissioner of iPatents, Washington, D. G. 

